Galician Paradise Lost. Multicultural Vision of Galicia at the Turn of the Century in Joseph Roth’s Writings

Abstract

Joseph Roth (1894–1939) was born in a poor Jewish family in Brody (Galicia). Even though he left his hometown as a student and spent the rest of his life in Vienna, Berlin and, above all, in Paris, the multinational and multicultural Galicia of his childhood is always present in his writings. Faced to the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the drama of the First World War and the progressing modernity, Roth tries to save in his writings this mythical Galician realm, where life seems to be simply and righteous. Roth’s Galicia is ruled by nature, time is cyclical and people, although not always entirely good or honest, live together peacefully and do care about the others. Unfortunately, this world is coming to its end and is already haunted by the vision of death. The Galician paradise by Roth is a paradise lost.